TĪNG — Restaurant in London

Came here to enjoy a nice birthday dinner and I must say I paid to enjoy the view rather than enjoy the food. The view was spectacular, booked for 7:30pm, just when it was sunset and what can I say, you just can’t go wrong with a London sunset skyline. That was the best part of the dinner since the food quality was not as good as the view or the aesthetics of Tīng.

Came as a party of 5 people, so each ordered individual dishes then had two sharing plates- the Malaysian fried rice and the Mapo tofu. Malaysian fried rice, apparently the ‘best dish’ according to the server, we actually found to be no different in taste from the average Friday night takeaway chinese fried rice, except plated nicely with a few surrounding extras of prawn crackers, chicken, pineapple, spring onions, fried shallots and an egg on top. I think we all agreed that the best part of the dish was the sunny side up egg, although it was just a regular morning fried egg. The fried rice itself -boring, bland, not really Malaysian in taste. Being of Malaysian roots, I may be more particular and sensitive when tasting foods that claim to be Malaysian since I have foods I am able to compare to. I must say I’ve had better and cheaper fried rice for £5 in London compared to this eye watering expensive £40 ‘Malaysian Fried Rice’. Spicy? No, not really so I added some of the provided chilli on the side but where was the fragrance? There was only spice coming from the spicy sauce but no other flavour, making it lacking in terms of Malaysian and only one word to describe it - boring. Prawn crackers- explain to me how they were able to undercook the prawn crackers. Surely you would expect the bare minimum would be for a nice crunchy, melt in the mouth prawn cracker from a Shangri-La restaurant, but it was slightly chewy near the end of devouring it that we could tell it was just undercooked by a bit, pretty disappointing for me. Chicken pieces- relatively small pieces, decent tasting, I’ve had better from KFC. I feel as though the whole plate does not deserve to be the signature Tīng dish. But could any of the dishes actually be considered a signature or a chef special dish?

My sister ordered the Char Sui Pork dish, only comment - too salty. We found the same with another dish, forgot the name, but we think that the chef potentially mixed up their salt and sugars on that evening. The Miso Cod I had for myself, pretty good. The fish was nicely cooked and I enjoyed the mushrooms with the miso sauce, but again, slightly on the salty side for the sauce. My brother and father both ordered the A5 Wagyu Sirloin dish, saying it was delicious. The meat was cooked perfectly, juicy and tender and the sauce paired with it was a nice touch to the dish. The fries were good as well (tastes just like your regular McDonalds fries).

We tried three of the signature cocktails: Blue moon, Wind of Love and the Rose Spritz. My favourite out of the three was the Wind of Love, which was made from Mezcal, Lime juice, agave syrup and averna. The taste was light and luxurious, complementing some of the dishes we had.

In regards to service, a very friendly receptionist who took our coats as we arrived. The waitress looking after us for the night was very sweet, she recommended several of the dishes to us as well. I did expect some sort of small birthday surprise given that our reservation I did specify ‘birthday’, however I feel as though due to the busy nature of the restaurant, this was forgotten about and we didn’t mention it but paid the bill after the food and left. I did see pictures of complimentary Happy Birthday plates before but oh well, not too much of a big deal since we were having cake later on. The ambiance of the restaurant was very relaxed, and we had the pleasure of watching a proposal being made in the restaurant.

All in all, would I go again or would I recommend? Personally, no. It was a nice experience but not again for me. Maybe try Hutong which also has brilliant views but the food is of better quality and kinder...

We booked for afternoon tea at 12.30pm (opening time) on a Sunday. We arrived early at 12.15pm and were asked to wait in the foyer till they opened at 12.30pm. The foyer is really nice and has some seats. It's worth arriving a bit early to look at the views. Even the toilets have a lovely view!

After we noticed others being seated, we go up to go in. It would have been a nice touch if someone had come to the foyer and said they were ready for us as this is a fine dining restaurant. We were placed at a table where all the blinds were down. Since people come here for the view I'm not sure why they were still down. It wasn't sunny that day at all. We asked if we could be moved to a table where the blinds were up and they did move us to a nicer table which was appreciated. If you can get a table on the NW side of the restaurant (left side of the restaurant as you walk up to it) you'll have the best views because you'll be able to see London Bridge, St Paul's, the walkie talkie etc. The NW side has Tower Bridge and East views and you can see the London Bridge train station below.

We ordered our teas and then waited and waited and waited. Other tables who arrived after us were being served tea and also the afternoon tea trays. We queried the timings with our server and eventually about 50 minutes after being sat down we got our teas (one of the teas was the wrong one), and then 5 minutes later our food. Not sure exactly what happened but the staff seemed pretty rushed for most of the time we were there.

The tea was nice but after having 1 cup the pot water had gone cold (to be fair this is a common occurrence with most tea pots in the UK). So I kept re-ordering pots after just 1 cup which felt wasteful. The staff kept trying to pour our tea as soon as it arrived without asking if we'd like them to pour it. I prefer a stronger brew so I think they should be trained to just ask first before pouring.

Sandwiches were nice but nothing special, they could have done with being a bit more full contents-wise for more flavour. The sweet treats were delicious but all of them were on the same base biscuit which felt a bit same-same once you'd had all 3. They were beautifully decorated and made for a gorgeous photo though. The 'shard' dessert was so much fun when it was presented. And our server offered to take our photo at this point which was nice of her. Didn't love the flavour of it, it was a bit too much cream and chocolate and not enough cake for me. The savoury pea bun was weird. It's just mushy peas in a tiny bread bun. It was kinda bad. The veggie roll was tasty. The scones were brought out last and they were DIVINE. Whoever did these, well done! They were the highlight of the meal. Also the blackberry jam was perfect. I'd actually recommend asking for your scones to come out at the same time as the other food because by the time they come out last, you're pretty full already. The amount of food was great and we were offered additionally sandwiches but didn't need them.

As far as decor goes, TING is a bit basic so don't come expecting beautiful tea cups and gorgeous plates. I think it's worth doing once just for the views. I think next time we'd probably try the other afternoon tea place in the Shard for a different experience. The staff were all nice despite the long waiting time. And they knocked off service charge at the end (which is sort of funny because it's like saying sorry, we'll knock off the tip, but our table wasn't planning to...

Our welcome host at the entrance was a 10/10, exceptional service from the lovely lady at ground level. Asked for our purpose of visit, informed her about our booking for afternoon tea and sent us straight up after our bags being checked by friendly security. Arrived at 35th floor, second host was observant and saw that we weren’t sure where to go and asked how they can help us, she brought us to the next host. Third host was friendly and told us to wait a little longer as they are preparing the table by the window.

The service from here goes downhill… Our tea and 3 tier afternoon cake stand arrived. The waiter didn’t explain each item on the stands or to say how it is usually consumed by starting at the lowest tier, also didn’t explain that the scones are served at later stage. Luckily I’m a big fan of afternoon tea so I have some sort of experience… our tea was already finished for some time, but no eye contact of any staff, our dedicated waiter didn’t return to check if everything was OK nor asking if we needed more tea. It took a while to find eye contact. We ended up asking another waiter who was clearing the tables near us.

We had 4 sandwiches each and fancied a little more so we asked for extra sandwiches and during the wait most staff were extremely busy and focused on cleaning the tables surrounding us. It was again hard to get their attention to ask for a new fresh pot of tea. After a long while we had to ask where the sandwiches were and someone was going to check, but didn’t return or explain what was happening. At least another 10 mins later staff walked over to ask if the sandwiches arrived… He said he will personally go to the kitchen and check. 5 mins later he delivered the sandwiches and apologised for the wait. Unsure what happened but it took such a long time that our scones were being delivered not long after and now we had to eat the scones cold because we were still eating our sandwiches.

Near the end of our afternoon, the staff were preparing for dinner service so we were ready to pay and again finding someone was quite a challenge.

One other thing to point out was the cleaning lady hoovering the carpet around the tables was having such a bad day. She was huffing and puffing.. literally could tell she was having a horrific day, this really should have been picked up by her manager and should not be seen by guest, this negative attitude at such a premium setting was just disgusting.

When we called for the bill, we weren’t asked if everything was OK and if we had a good time or didn’t even engage with us. Took my money and went. The bill was added with 15% service charge. Today’s experience didn’t deserve my 15% at all.

We were ready to go and started to walk towards the entrance of the restaurant and walked past at least 2-4 quite senior staff wearing different uniform than the waiters and busy chatting amongst themselves. They didn’t thank us or wish us a good day or have any eye contact with their guests leaving.

Perhaps we were unlucky and staff had a tough day. I think we had high expectations due the premium price afternoon tea but sadly will not be recommending based on service.

Despite a negative review. The table allocated to us had great view. Food was average. Life band was wonderful. Great ambiance. Not too noisy. Didn’t have to shout...